It’s that time of the year again: the start of the summer season! Summer isn’t as big as spring or fall – there’s about two-thirds as many shows premiering compared to this past spring – but there are still several exciting titles to talk about. As usual, I’ll watch the first episode of most shows within certain parameters (in other words, not the kiddie shows), and what I list here are the chances of me actually blogging something based on my initial impressions from promotional material. However, even if I list the chances for a show as good or guaranteed, it doesn’t necessarily mean I’ll stick with it for more than a few episodes.

By no means does this list reflect every single anime series that is going to be aired, though I did try to be as comprehensive as I could. Check out MOON PHASE for an entire listing, syoboi’s calendar for specific air-times, and Fansub Wiki’s Summer 2008 page for who’s tentatively subbing what.

Technical Note: All times are given in a 24-hour, relative-day format where times are extended to show which day they belong to. For instance, Friday morning at 1:30AM would become Thursday at 25:30 to show that the episode aired late Thursday night.

Sekireihttp://www.sekirei-tv.com/
Premieres July 2nd, 2008
Airtime in Japan (JST, GMT+9): Wednesdays at 23:30
Airtime in U.S. (EST, GMT-4): Wednesdays at 10:30
Information Links: ANN Encyclopedia, AnimeNfo, AniDB, syoboi
Sekirei is one of the series generating the most pre-season excitement, partially because it comes from a fairly well established manga, and partially because there’s been a lot of promotional material for it. The story involves a worthless guy who failed his college entrance exams but one day has a beautiful and buxom girl suddenly fall out of the sky on top of him. The girl chooses him as her master, and they subsequently get involved in a battle royale with other fighters. The manga has a lot of fanservice and nudity to go with all the action, and if the PVs are any indicator, it looks like the anime version will follow suit. I’ve generally heard pretty good things about this though (I’ve personally only read a couple of chapters), and it’s also being worked on the same Seven Arcs team that did Inukami! and all three Nanoha series, so this might be something that might be worth tuning in for.
Odds I’ll Blog This: Good

Zero no Tsukaima ~Princesses no Rondo~http://www.zero-tsukaima.com/
Premieres July 6th, 2008
Airtime in Japan (JST, GMT+9): Sundays at 24:30
Airtime in U.S. (EST, GMT-4): Sundays at 11:30
Information Links: ANN Encyclopedia, AnimeNfo, AniDB, syoboi
If you’ve been coming to Random Curiosity for a while, Zero no Tsukaima is a series that probably needs no introduction since I’ve blogged both the first two series. You may also remember that, particularly towards the end, I wasn’t too happy with the second series and had questioned whether I would want to watch a third one. Well that time has finally come, and the decision is still up in the air. The third series will feature Louise and Saito going back to Albion to search for the fairy with mysterious powers (aka. Tiffania), and apparently Saito’s rune disappears as well. My issue with the series currently is that I know that the anime adaptation has completely ruined any semblance of the novels’ overarching story, and while that doesn’t necessarily prevent the anime adaptation from being good in its own right, the second series proved to be rather lackluster. Add to that the fact that this is airing on the same day of the week as CODE GEASS, and I’m less inclined to devote the time to blog this. In short, if the second series had been better, I’d mark this as guaranteed, but as it stands, I’m taking a wait-and-see approach with the first few episodes.
Odds I’ll Blog This: Good

Note: This is a rather long and fairly comprehensive list of the shows coming in July. Much much more after the jump, including the torrent link for promotional material.

Episode at a Glance:
After winning a trip to a hot spring from a lottery draw, Kuugen, Kou, and the rest of the Takagamis make the trip out there, where they run into Noboru and Tooru’s grandmother, Oobaba-sama, and uncle, Midzuchi Tatsuhiko.

If you are watching or are planning on watching the J-drama Zettai Kareshi, be sure to bring a big box of tissues for the finale. In fact, even though I knew pretty much exactly what was going to happen in the end thanks to having read the manga, I still cried when I watched it. It’s a testament to how much emotion was in the finale and how much you connect with the characters after having followed their stories for so long (which I realize you can say for a lot of series, but it was especially powerful in this instance).

For those of you who aren’t familiar with Zettai Kareshi, it’s about a girl who gets a robot as her ideal boyfriend, and the problems and love triangle that this leads to. As I noted when I first wrote about it a few weeks ago, the series quite a lot of fun to watch. It can get a bit cheesy at times – which is hard to avoid in these kinds of drama series – but those moments were rare, and I thought they did a great job pacing the story with plot twists and cliffhangers. In retrospect, I wish I had started watching this earlier and perhaps made an attempt to blog it. Come to think of it, I really should pay more attention to drama series based on shoujo manga titles in general – I haven’t had a great record with anime adaptations, but I usually like thedrama versions.

In any case, I’m glad I took the time to watch this series because, as you can see, I ended up loving it. I’d highly recommend it for anyone who enjoys a good light-hearted romance. Now I’m going to go back to listening to the theme song on repeat…

Omni recently wrote about Code Geass R2’s low television ratings. And while I couldn’t care less what a large number of Average Joe’s and Josephina’s amassed into a mindless herd-like mob collectively think about a show I like (regardless of whether they are Japanese or American), I did start to wonder why I STILL have episodes 9 and 10 sitting unwatched on my hard drive.

Episode at a Glance:
Realizing that Miharu plans to use the Shinrabanshou powers to help Yoite, Raimei insists on lending a hand in some way after coming to terms with what happened between Raikou and her family.